Airtel Africa recently released its annual report for the year ended March 2026, and the first thing one could see is the growth profile of the African continent. The continent has enormous appetite for telecom product consumption, and sincere investors still have the potential to reap immense dividends.
From voice, data and mobile money services, the continent still demonstrates huge capacity to return great value for every investment dollar, and as the continent becomes more mobile, as businesses continue to follow people’s movements to grow, as financial services demand more convenience and greater penetration for far-flung communities in search of the unbanked and the underbanked, mobile money services look to be the biggest earner in the coming few years at the very least.
Mobile money is big because while the telcos are also licensed as operators, they also play the roles of enablers, as all the other non-telco licensed mobile money operators also ride on the back of telecom traffic for all their transactions.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the global leader in mobile money, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the $1.4 trillion in transaction value in 2023. With over 400 million users, it serves as the primary financial tool for many, offering digital wallets for peer-to-peer transfers, merchant payments, loans, and insurance via basic mobile phones.
Africa has over 50% of the world’s mobile money accounts. In 2023, Sub-Saharan Africa processed over $1.4 trillion in transaction value.
Key players on the continent include: MTN Mobile Money (MoMo), Airtel Money, and M-PESA. MTN has over 50 million monthly active users, while Airtel plans are reported to have plans for a future IPO.
The business has moved beyond basic transfers and is now used for utility payments, school fees, e-commerce, and merchant payments, which have increased significantly. It serves as a crucial bridge for the 57% of Africans who lack traditional bank accounts, fostering economic participation in rural areas.
Nigeria’s mobile money market is experiencing explosive growth, with transactions hitting ₦20.71 trillion in Q1 2025, a 1,518% increase from Q1 2021. Driven by financial inclusion, high smartphone penetration, and cashless policies, the market is projected to reach USD 140.2 million by 2033. Key players include OPay, Paga, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, and some of the major banks.
The opportunity for mobile money penetration in Nigeria is still very huge. As of March 2026, only 66.8 million Nigerians have registered bank verification numbers (BVN). This means that the more than 320 million bank accounts that exist in Nigeria belong to less than 67 million people.
For a country that is said to have a population of more than 230 million in population, with the under 30 youth segment constituting approximately 70 per cent, the unbanked segment of the populace still outweighs those already captured by the banking system.
It points to immense growth opportunities for the mobile money operators like Airtel.
It is no wonder that Airtel reported remarkable growth in its mobile money portfolio across Africa for the year ended 2026. Airtel said it grew its mobile money account by 39%, from $65 million in 2025 to $90 million for the quarter ended March 2026, and by 34% $244 million in 2025 to $328 million in 2026.
Looking at this section of the report revealed something interesting: while earnings from mobile money business is growing exponentially, the inflow from voice and data appears to have slowed perceptibly.
Airtel appeared to be throwing a lot more into this side of the business, as was noticed from the earnings during first quarter 2026. If an extrapolation can be made from the Q1 2026 earnings for the rest of the year, then Airtel looks to trump its 2026 earnings from mobile money by a significant margin when the books close in 2027.
Voice revenue has suffered quite noticeably over the past year, and in the quarter ended March 2026. For the full year, voice revenue actually fell by 1% for the full year ended March 31, 2026, dropping from $617 million in 2025 to $611 million in 2026. But for the first quarter ended March 2026, signs of recovery were evident as the numbers peaked at $150 million for March 2026, from $147 million for March 2025.
Revenue from data services had some impressive growth, soaring by 34% from $567 million to $759 million for the year ended March 2026. It was also noticeable that Airtel customers spend significantly more money on data than on voice. For 2025, the difference between voice and data revenue was noticeably wide. It amounted to 4857 million. But in 2026, this soared to a $1,115 million difference, from $611 million to $1,726 million. This is another pointer to the direction of Airtel’s future business direction; that mobile money and data services are the new frontiers, even as it struggles to continue to keep Africans maintaining the tradition of talking.
A serious campaign targeting the unbanked, the underbanked and even current mobile money service users can turn the tables. If the business looks at it the way it looked at its data portfolio a few years ago and which prompted it to raise campaigns such as the Igboro the mechanic, the one that featured the man stranded on an island and the one which featured the two squabbling, mother in-laws, the table could turn dramatically in its favour, and mobile money could contribute a lot more than what it is bringing in currently.
With platforms like WhatsApp, IMO, Messenger, and others enabling voice and video calls, it does not look like there’s going to be a serious revival for voice services by either Airtel or any of the other telcos on the continent.
Data calls are perceived to be lower in cost than the inter- and intra-network calls. And as social and economic migration continues, and reconnecting with the homeland becomes more important to maintain family bonds, inter- and intra-network calls will continue to yield ground to data calls, and so will the revenue.
Nigeria remains big in terms of revenue contributions for Airtel in Africa. Nigeria accounted for 25% of total revenue from the business’s African operations for the year, raking in $1,536 billion.
The entire East Africa and Francophone Africa were bundled into a single accounting head, and accounted for 46% and 28% of the revenue, translating to $2,838 billion and $1,726 billion revenues, respectively.
Airtel is still squeezing money from its customers despite the widespread complaints of an unfavourable economy across the continent. It added more than 17 million customers to its network in 2026 across the continent, growing from 166.1 to 186.5 customers between 2025 and 2026.
The network, from its report, is proving quality call service as customers were reported to be increasing the time they spend on the network. In the 2005 fiscal year, customers were reported to have spent 570.27 million minutes on the network, but this increased to 600.7 million minutes in 2026. That’s more customers reassured and retained, and that meant more money spent on the network.
The numbers immediately showed proof of increased time spent on the network by the millions of customers of the network in Africa. Revenue for Airtel for the year ended March 2026 amounted to $6.415 billion, up from $4.955 billion in 2025. The extra $1.46 billion added in 2026 becomes significant when looked against the loss of $25 million loss recorded in the 2024/2025 financial year.
Shareholders would be smiling at the board for operations that smell like it came with vastly improved efficiency. Profit attributable to the company owners stood at $679 million, up by over 600% in 2026 from $220 million in 2025.
It looks like Airtel is happy with its investments in Nigeria, as it is yielding comparatively exponentially higher revenue than its East African or Francophone African businesses. In the business year that just closed, revenue from its Nigerian business increased by an impressive 53%, from $1.045 billion in 2025 to $1.598 billion in 2026.
Comparatively, the East African portfolio yielded just 19%, rising from $1.843 billion in 2025 to $2.192 billion in 2026. The Francophone West African business also increased by 19%, leaping from $1.3 billion in 2025 to $1.550 billion in 2026.
The numbers for other revenue sources appear quite steep when it comes to Nigeria. Voice revenue was recorded as leaping by 37%, data revenue by a dizzying 70%, while other revenue sources returned an impressive 44% rise. Compared to the other markets, the East African jurisdiction recorded 18% increase for voice, 235% increase for data and 8% for other revenue sources, while the Francophone countries returned 4% increase for voice, 38% increase for data and 9% increase for other revenue sources.
Airtel has a lot of work to do in deepening its mobile money service in Nigeria. Of the 54.1 million customers on its mobile money service in Africa, only 2.7 million people are in Nigeria. With all the opportunities that exist in Nigeria for growth among the unbanked and underbanked, Airtel has performed not impressively in this area.
Its deep roots in the East African market, where it has some 40.9 million customers, and the francophone market, where over 10 million customers trust it for their mobile money services, have to be replicated in Nigeria because the value is larger in Nigeria than in any of those markets.
Operating in a market as large as Nigeria, the slight 0.95 decline in the total value of money it processed in the year ended March 2025 should not be acceptable. Airtel should, with the benefit of the Nigerian market, be doing a lot more than the $48.6 billion it logged in total amount of money it processed for its customers during the year.
The Nigerian market should be able to earn it a lot more than the $331 million it harvested in mobile money revenue for the year ended March 2026.
It can be seen that a lot needs to be done in the Nigerian market in terms of deepening the mobile money service. Compared to the East African market, which harvested $238 million, and the Francophone market, which hauled $90 million in mobile money revenue, Nigeria pales in significance with the $3 million it returned.
Airtel has to leverage its vast network to increase earnings from this field. Although it will be in competition against big operators such as Moniepoint, Opay, Palmpay and others, the vast field suggests a lot could be accomplished should the business take this aspect a lot more seriously.
A serious campaign targeting the unbanked, the underbanked and even current mobile money service users can turn the tables. If the business looks at it the way it looked at its data portfolio a few years ago and which prompted it to raise campaigns such as the Igboro the mechanic, the one that featured the man stranded on an island and the one which featured the two squabbling, mother in-laws, the table could turn dramatically in its favour, and mobile money could contribute a lot more than what it is bringing in currently.
Business looked good for 2026. And it looks like Airtel is also getting ready to dilute what looks like their biggest threats in business. SpaceX was looking like it was threatening the telecom business in the data area, but Airtel has proved that this could turn to advantages rather than a disadvantage. On 16 December 2025, Airtel Africa plc said in the report that it had announced a partnership with SpaceX to introduce Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellite connectivity across its 14 markets, serving those customers with compatible handsets. This service will enable data for certain apps and text messaging in areas without terrestrial coverage, with future upgrades aimed to deliver high-speed connectivity via next-generation satellites. Airtel Africa says it is the first mobile operator in Africa to partner with SpaceX for Direct-to-Cell connectivity. This agreement would bridge the digital divide and expand connectivity across the continent by providing data services to remote areas that are not covered by current cellular infrastructure.
